Not twelve months before I should have considered that fortune as quite sufficient for all my wants and wishes through life; but my feelings had changed; I desired more, far more. What was it that was at my heart? Was it avarice? Oh, no! What was it, then? I cannot tell. There was a hope, and an expectation, and a looking forward into the future, that made me greedy without greediness, and aspiring without ambition. I must now return to speak for a moment of one whom I have not noticed for some time. The progress of young Martin Vern was slow but steady; and at the end of about a month or six weeks he was enabled to sit up and walk about the camp. In a week more he could ride out with me on horseback, when with no particular enterprising view I went forth to reconnoitre the enemy or examine the country around. From his uncle he had received no intelligence up to that period at which the Protestant army was marching upon Saumur, being completely master of the country between the Loire and the Charente. But a terrible storm was gathering to the east, where the army of the Duke of Anjou was daily increasing in strength, and moving rapidly towards us. A degree of ferocity, too, was beginning to animate both parties. The Count de Lude attacked the town of Mirabeau; received its surrender upon capitulation, and yet ordered the greater part of the garrison to be put to the sword in cold blood. The wrath and indignation of the Protestants now exceeded all bounds, especially as La Borde and his brother, who were among the first victims at Mirabeau, were universally loved and admired in the army. No one felt their death more bitterly than the Admiral de Coligny; and, swearing by all he held sacred that he would avenge them, he refused all terms of capitulation to the town of St. Florent, which he was then besieging, but gave the garrison notice to defend themselves to the last, as beyond all doubt he would put every man to the sword. I was myself, at the time, marching forward with a large body of troops towards Loudun; but I heard shortly afterward that the admiral had too terribly kept his word. We came in presence of the enemy in the neighbourhood of Loudun; and on the assembling of the whole Protestant force, it was found that we were not much inferior in number to our antagonists. But the weather had now become extremely severe; and the Duke of Anjou not judging it prudent to risk a general battle at that moment, retired, leaving us to take a little repose in winter-quarters.